Paul West has offered a sophisticated counterpoint to the conclusions in my article, “Would Hudson have been Packard’s best merger partner?” I am thus elevating his comment to the front page.
Nice article, Steve. I applaud your efforts in building and sustaining this site.
Short of continuing alone, I think Hudson might have been the best option, with timing, temperament, talent and the total package being the keys.
Timing:
Edward Barit, President of Hudson, approached Nance sometime in the fall of 1953, desperate to merge due to the failure of his Jet. Then in October, James Nance learned that Conner Ave. plant where Briggs built Packard bodies had been purchased by Chrysler. Soon thereafter, Tex Colbert told Nance that he would let Packard build cars only through 1954. Anything after that would need to be negotiated. The clock was now ticking.
Also see ‘Five (arguably) unresolved mysteries of postwar independent automakers’
The other timing element was that Packard’s “Contour” styling needed to go, preferably after the 1954 model year and definitely after 1955. No Hudson version. No starry eyes. No cathedrals. No wrapped windshields. No more good money after bad. There were too many competitive advances during this time period.
Temperament:
Nash-Kelvinator CEO George Mason was a shrewd negotiator and, I get the impression, as power-hungry as Nance. Neither was willing to play second-fiddle, both believing that they were the superior leader. Perhaps if Nance could have convinced Mason to spend mostly Nash’s money on an all-new, lower body akin to the 1955 Nash Ambassador by Pinin Farina, and let Nance run the large-car business, it might have worked.
Talent:
Short of that, it was Hudson that had impressive body engineering knowledge, manufacturing infrastructure and a head start on a lower car, all of which would have been key to Packard-Hudson’s survival. The Italia X-161 prototype sedan demonstrated what was possible, and the final car would have only gotten better had Teague led the design and more money been spent on chassis geometry changes to the basic Monobilt underbody. The rear track needed to widen and the rear overhang needed to lengthen.
The Total Package:
A new round of fundraising necessary for an early-1955 launch of all-new step-down unibody cars, the marriage of The Master Engine Builder and master body-builder would have been the hottest news in town and a key selling point to investors. Nance and Barit’s teams would have needed to pull together a lot of material in a very short period of time. If accepted, a merger and vehicle development would have quickly followed. If not, Nance would have needed to focus on a 1956 launch of an all-new lower Conner-built car and hope that the new V8 installed in the carryover 1954 car sold well enough in 1955 to help fund the effort. A tall order indeed.
“Photochoppers anyone?”… I wish there was an option to upload!
— Paul West
RE:SOURCES
- wildaboutcarsonline.com (Automotive History Preservation Society): Hudson (1954); Packard (1954)
Indie Auto invites your comments (see below) or letters to the editor (go here). Letters may be lightly edited for style. In the absence of an upload option in the comment threads, readers can send images as attachments to “editor(at)indieauto.org.”
Paul, I came across a series of photoshops of a Packard based upon the X-161 over at packardinfo.com. It’s an interesting scenario. You can clearly see the challenge of adequately differentiating the two brands. The Packard would have looked like a bigger, fancier Hudson.
Of course, that’s just a photoshop. If Packard had tied up with Hudson it would have brought to the combine a more conventional approach to styling that might have counterbalanced some of Hudson’s eccentricities.
I wouldn’t go with the Clipper taillights, and the Panther front end, which it seems to have, is just ugly. However it is simply truth that in mergers like this, one car will end up a badge engineered version of the other.
Steve, sorry I didn’t discover this until just now. Thanks for elevating.
If that PackardInfo strategy seems similar to what I had suggested, it is because I am Mahoning63! And I totally agree, Teague would have toned down Spring’s engineering-centric design tendencies.
Kim, I went with the Panther theme figuring that to launch the cars in early ’55, design freeze would have needed to happen roughly a year earlier. Panther appeared very early in ’54 if I am not mistaken, so it would have represented Teague’s current thinking. Existing components like Packard’s ’54 “sore thumb” taillights would have been one less item to tool. I saw the Panther a long time ago when I lived in Cleveland and frequented the Crawford Auto Museum. It was there on loan for a short period. I thought it an impressive design, very low and wide, with surfacing that was nicely resolved and balanced. Today I might see it differently. Am glad Teague’s brown rendering had a beltline kick-up, gave me the excuse to include it. Straightlaced X-161 needed the “swing” as Bill Mitchell might have called it.